Faith

Something new is happening among young American Christians. A new generation of believers identify themselves as evangelicals, but they are clearly progressive in their view of the world.

Popular evangelist Tony Campolo calls them “red letter Christians.” The time is too early to completely understand the emerging phenomenon, but something new IS happening and certain elements in the movement can be identified.

Campolo is referring to a lot of young evangelical Christians who have taken a new interest in the stories, sayings and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. Most all of us have seen red-letter editions of the Bible in which the words ascribed to Jesus are highlighted in red. Thus the name.

Much of the American public has suffered for decades with a misunderstanding of what the Bible is. Popular fundamentalist preachers have sold millions of people on the idea that the Bible is an error-free, infallible holy book. In their scheme of understanding, the most obscure Old Testament paragraph can become more important than the clearest messages of Jesus. A new generation of believers is not buying what fundamentalist Bible thumpers are saying.

A whole host of young Christians are reading the Bible with different eyes. They are finding a Jesus who deeply cared about people who were on the bottom rung of life’s ladder. They are finding a Jesus, whose highest calling was to be a servant, and who never thought of self first. They are finding a Jesus who rejected punishment as a means of redemption. They are finding a Jesus for whom war was unthinkable. They are finding a Jesus who told his head disciple “put up your sword!”

Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners magazine, describes what is going on with young evangelicals in his latest book “The Great Awakening.”

Wallis writes “Something is happening. Faith is being applied to social justice in ways that we might have never imagined just a few years ago. Spiritual power is being harnessed to address the greatest social challenges that we face today.”

As a minister, I receive notices of many different conferences and seminars. This week’s mail brought one such notice of special interest. You are invited to an important two-day conference that will explore what it means to be both progressive and evangelical…and why blending these two impulses is vital for spiritual and social renewal. The Chicago area event will feature seven distinguished scholars. The two days will be filled with lectures, panel responses and participant discussions.

Obviously something is going on. Is this a part of the surge of young people who are flooding out to participate in the campaign of a young presidential candidate who speaks easily about love and hope?

More and more young people are becoming disenchanted with the negative, condemning messages of many Christian churches. Bama Research is a research organization in Ventura, Calif. In a recent Bama Research report, 85 percent of non-Christian youth reported they view Christian churches as hypocritical and say churches show excessive contempt for gay and lesbian people. That did not surprise me. What did surprise me is that 80 percent of evangelical Christian youth felt the same way toward Christian churches today because of their excessive contempt for gay and lesbian people.

I suspect that Christian young people have too many out-of-the-closet gay friends to come to any other conclusion.

Instead of being concerned about gay acceptance, the new young evangelicals are asking questions about the environment, about the folly of war, about the concentration of wealth with the few, about health care for everyone, about the AIDS epidemic in Africa and about quality education for everyone.

I continue to be devoted to Jesus of Nazareth. I have been enormously disappointed with the behavior of Christian people and churches. I am disappointed with Christians and churches that do things that harm rather than help. But I am most disappointed with Christians and churches that do nothing.

I pray that the new generation of evangelicals will change all that and usher in a new day of doing the good news of Jesus. It appear that something is happening.

The Rev. Howard Bess is pastor of Church of the Covenant, an American Baptist church in Palmer. His email address is hdbss@mtaonline.net.